


I'll Follow The Sun

by cloudy_blue



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Miscommunication, Period Typical Attitudes, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29642337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudy_blue/pseuds/cloudy_blue
Summary: For a strange, wonderful moment, John had thought that if he pushed himself up and kissed Paul, Paul would not be horrified. Paul might stay. Paul might want him to.Paul is too large to balance on a might. So John squeezed his eyes shut and eventually he had fallen asleep.They had gone back to Liverpool and they had met Brian.(Summer, 1963. They've had two singles reach number one, released a record-breaking album and their tour looks set to sell-out. Returning from Spain, John's finally certain of what he wants - which would be useful if Paul wasn't behaving so strangely.)
Relationships: Brian Epstein/John Lennon, Cynthia Lennon/John Lennon, Jane Asher/Paul McCartney, John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Beatles in 1963 when they were in the process of becoming the most famous people on the planet are very interesting to me so this is partly about that and the adjustment between this completely unimaginable fame and fortune against the lives they had before. And it is also about John and Brian in Spain and how that might have affected John's relationship with Paul. I've tried to stick to the timeline as much as possible, but except for the dates and places, all of it is fictional.

The light here is different.

Different from what?

Different. Just different. Different from the grey light in Liverpool when it appears in snatches between the clouds. Different especially from the light that comes in through the thick curtains hanging in Paul’s room in Forthlin Road – pale blue in the early morning, thin and yellow in the afternoon.

If Paul was here, he would understand. But Paul is not here, and John has to settle for the dry voice in his head that sounds like him.

In the other room, the shower cuts off. John has never been in a shower until this week. That’s different as well – nicer, maybe, than a bath, less work involved.

He feels very peaceful. He thinks absently of having orange juice for breakfast. Proper orange juice – so fresh the pulp is still floating around in the glass. Paul would probably turn his nose up at the texture but John likes it.

John likes Spain. He is different here too: just John, or – _Joh-n,_ which is how Brian says his name, all posh, with the sharp ‘Joh’ drawn out long enough to almost swallow the rest of it, crisp and cut off.

Paul says his name all in one, slanting, like _John_ – single-breath, the slight kick of his accent.

Paul. How is Paul?

Pick up the phone and ask him yourself.

Christ! What about the rates? You’re not a millionaire yet, John Lennon.

He’d half-thought about scrawling a postcard to Paul (and George and Ringo and whoever the fuck else would be hanging around when he read it) and sending it off with the ones to Mimi and Cyn-and-the-kid. But there hadn't been anything to say until last night and now he got caught up in imagining Paul’s face when he got it, the furrow appearing between his brows, the childish, anxious worrying at his fingers.

No good.

Much better to sink back against the soft pillows and listen to the vague sounds from the bathroom, Brian humming something tunelessly through the closed door.

Brian – that’s another thing different in Spain. Brian-in-Spain is relaxed, less skittish – although John hadn’t realised that Brian was particularly skittish in Liverpool, until seeing him here.

The bathroom door opens and Brian comes out. He stands in the doorway a moment, smiling at John.

“You’re awake, then.”  
“You woke me,” John says. “Making all that racket.”

Brian grins at him. He’s clean-shaven, still damp from the shower, the top button of his shirt is popped open which is as much of a concession to casual as John has yet seen him make.

It’s just Brian, but it sits oddly, makes John feel clumsily hot and embarrassed and fond – Well, that’s what going to bed with a fellow will do to you. His skin still prickles from the rub of Brian’s stubble – It’s mere hours since he pressed his mouth to the hollow of Brian’s clavicle exposed by the gaping ‘v’ of his shirt.

“I thought I’d go round the city some more today,” Brian says, crossing to the dresser to fix in his cufflinks. “Do you want to join me?”  
“Alright,” John says.

He doesn’t make a move to get up though and after a moment, Brian comes over and sits hesitantly on the end of the bed. He’s cut himself shaving, there’s a tiny mark beneath his left ear. Poor Brian, always so careful and still getting himself hurt. 

“Is there anything the matter, John?” he asks. _Joh-n_.   
“No,” John says.

He had gone to sleep feeling comfortable and sated and quite prepared to put off addressing the fact of what had happened until morning.

He had woken feeling more peaceful than he has in years, peaceful and happy, none of the crawling horror that usually followed his trysts with Stu, heavy-limbed in Stu’s creaky bed in Gambier Terrace or fumbling on top of each other in a dirty cot in Hamburg, struggling, as fast as possible before anyone came in.

He feels whole, himself entirely – Like throwing open a window and letting light in to a dusty room.

And Brian – handsome, clever Brian with his steady hands and practiced mouth.

“Eppy,” John says. “I’m not queer.”

Brian nods.

“I know, John,” he says. _Joh-n_. “Just a bit of fun, eh?”  
“Right,” John says, although he means _no, not just, not just a bit of fun, not fooling around_. But Brian nods, understanding and sympathetic.

The problem when Paul is not around is that everything John says gets taken so literally. 

“We don’t have to mention it again,” Brian says. “If you don’t want to.”  
“Alright,” John says.   
“Unless you want to,” Brian says, uncertainly.  
“No,” John says. “No.”

Brian claps a hand on John’s leg. He stands up.

“Alright then,” he says, and they don't talk about it for the rest of the trip.

* * *

Paul. PaulPaulPaulPaul _PaulPaulPaul_.

Once upon a time, John crouched down outside the poky off licence off Penny Lane to tie his shoe. Paul stopped walking to wait for him, still chattering, Paul – still young enough to wear school uniform, his tie loose and his sleeves pushed up past his elbows because it was summer, and warm. John looked up to say something snide and found that Paul was already looking at him. The clear, mid-afternoon light made his eyes seem almost green, wild and bright.

Paul has always been a very good-looking young man. That’s what all the aunts used to say.

John is not prone to introspection – actually, he tries to avoid it where possible – but occasionally bouts of it sneak up on him. He is dimly aware – Better to say, before Paul, before Stu, before Brian, he was only dimly aware that he liked men, he liked the way men looked, but he was only dimly interested in how it would feel to be with one.

Then Paul.

Then Stu, and John's interest in men became rapidly less hypothetical.

And now Brian, and John knows what a life with a man might look like: singing from the shower, someone else's razor and cream cluttering up the space beside the sink, deliberate space kept between them in public, strong hands in the dark.

He used to draw Cyn all the time, as practice and when he thought of her. Stu, too, oh, Stu. But other people, anyone, really – Georgie, with his sharp face and thick hair; Mimi, the jagged lines of her frown; the craggy man who drove the night bus. John has not drawn Paul, although most things he draws are adjacent to Paul because John thinks about Paul when he draws them.

That isn’t saying anything in particular because John thinks about Paul all the time.

In his head, John is eloquent and articulate and thinks beautiful thoughts about Paul’s smile, his sweeping lashes, his clever hands. They never translate. John won’t let them. He has a horrible fear that if he exposes the Paul in his head to pen and paper, he will corrupt and burn away, and then John won’t have either of them – the funny, handsome boy who smiles at John in John’s head on the very worst, the very grey days, or the funny, handsome boy who occupies his own space out in the world, free of John, who sleeps in far too late and borrows John’s t-shirts without asking.

Paul is a fixture. Paul is always there. Paul cannot be risked.

On John’s twenty-first birthday, so late at night it was almost morning, they lay side-by-side in a bed in Paris. In the darkness, Paul took John’s hand. He didn’t say anything, but he held John’s hand. John could feel the thick skin on his fingers where he pressed down on the strings of his guitar. John could hear his breathing, a little fast, a little uneven.

For the first time, for a strange, wonderful moment, John had thought that if he pushed himself up and kissed Paul, Paul would not be horrified. Paul might stay. Paul might want him to.

Paul is too large to balance on a _might_. So John had squeezed his hand and squeezed his eyes shut and eventually he had fallen asleep.

They had gone back to Liverpool and they had met Brian.

John is in love with Paul. Also, he loves Paul. People can stop being _in_ love, but they can never stop loving. This is a distinction he has only felt it necessary to make with Paul.

John loves Brian, but he has never been in love with Brian. For the first month they knew each other, John didn’t particularly like Brian – a posher, bossier version of Paul with less hair and fancier clothes.

Neither Brian nor Paul would be happy about that comparison so John has so far kept it to himself.

Paul understands John when John doesn’t talk. No one else does. Paul even understands John when he does talk, which sometimes seems to be more difficult.

Brian is very brave, but he has to be. Brian is in a lot of pain, which is alright because John is too.

Brian smells like an expensive type of cigarette and a rich cologne, sandalwood and something warm, like oranges or cinnamon. Brian is a good kisser. Brian is much better at handjobs than Stu was, and better at blowjobs than anyone John’s ever been with, except possibly Cyn who’s had the benefit of practice.

When Brian gets out of the car outside John’s house, he holds out his hand for John to shake. John leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek – one last moment of Brian-bravery – and then steps back, tips a salute.

“See you soon, then,” he says. “You sure you don’t want to come in?”  
“No, I want to go home and have a bath,” Brian says, already opening the car door. “You will talk to Paul, won’t you?”  
“I’ve said I will,” John says. “Six times now.”  
“Give my regards to Cynthia and the baby,” Brian says.  
“Yes, I’ll give the baby your regards,” John says, scornfully.

Brian grins, and climbs back into the car.

“Ta-ra,” he calls.   
“Bye,” John says, kicking open the front gate.

The car’s engine coughs and spits and then Brian’s gone, zooming too fast up the narrow road as John puts his key in the lock.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In editing the next two chapters I realised how ridiculously long they were so I'm splitting them into two each. Everything is very fictional. I hope you enjoy this part!

“ _John_!”

The pub isn't busy - it's just gone two on a weekday - but George and Ringo stand up as he approaches. A moment later, Paul does too. George leans over the table to give him a hug; Ringo claps a hand on John’s shoulder and squeezes. Paul stays put, staring fixedly at his beer and smiling inoffensively.

“How was Tenerife?” John asks. Ringo nudges a pint over towards him. “Aw, ta, Ritch.”  
“Ay, it was great, look how brown we are,” Ringo says. “Me mum said she barely recognised us.”  
“Yeah, mine said I’ve never looked so healthy,” George adds.

John laughs. He glances back over at Paul but Paul is watching his beer.

“The sun agrees with you, Georgie-boy,” John says. “Maybe next summer you’ll have a place of your own out there.”  
“Oh no, I don’t think so. Much too hot.”  
“He wouldn’t stop whining,” Ringo mutters.

John crows.

“Hey, if you’ve put up with that for a week you really are one of us.”  
“Twelve days,” Ringo corrects, long-suffering.  
“Sod off,” George says, good-naturedly. “Go on then, Johnny, how was Barcelona?”  
“Is Brian coming by?” Ringo asks.  
“I dunno,” John says. “Did you ask him to?”

His gaze slides back over to Paul, hopeful. The moment stretches, the time in which Paul can still look up and laugh and make another joke at George’s expense and everything will be fine, back to normal.

He doesn’t.

“Uh, yeah, we mentioned it,” Ringo says. He sounds slow, confused. There’s a scuffle on the other side of the table– Paul turns to scowl at George, shifting his chair away from him. “But I suppose we’ll see him later, and all. Go on, Johnny, tell us about Barcelona.”  
“Oh, yeah, it’s beautiful. Food was great. And it’s right by the sea, did you know?”  
“No,” Ringo says.  
“Yes,” Paul says. “Some of us can read a map.”

He looks up, for a moment. His hair needs a trim, sun-lightened, ruffled over his forehead. He needs a shave too, the line of his jaw is blurred with stubble. Then he cuts his gaze back to the table and puts both hands around his pint glass.

“The Inny turned his head,” John says. “He used to be such a nice boy, before they taught him to read a map.”

Ringo and George laugh. Paul’s lip curls.

“How’s Cyn?” he asks, acidly. “I s’pose she’s glad to have you back.”  
“Unlike you, you mean?”

Paul doesn’t say anything.

“Can you fucking look at me?” John demands. Ringo says,  
“Lads, c’mon –”

Paul makes a big show of lifting his chin and meeting John’s gaze. They glare at each other. Stupid Paul, John had missed him, God knows why –

Then Paul’s expression softens and he is suddenly very beautiful again, Paul, John’s Paul. The corner of his mouth twitches. John smiles back.

“Oh, there he is – _Eppy_!” George calls, waving over his head.

Paul’s expression shutters off. Brian puts a hand briefly on John’s shoulder before pulling a chair round to the head of the table and dropping into it.

“Hello boys, how are you all?”  
“Didn’t know if you were gonna make it,” Ringo says. “D’you want a pint?”  
“Oh, no, I better not, I’m still in the middle of things. Got to get back to it.”  
“What’s it?” Paul asks.  
“Scheduling, I think we can fit you in the studio again in July, although it’ll all be a bit rushed, but it’s the only time George is free – Martin,” he adds, smiling over at George. “Although Harrison will be quite busy as well.”

George rocks his chair onto its back legs.

“ _Quite_ busy,” he says. “What does very busy look like, then?”  
“I know, I know,” Brian says. He runs a hand through his hair. “But it’s all good fun, right?”  
“Right,” they chorus.  
“What else, oh – I think we ought to put you back on TV before the next single release, I’ve been talking to someone at the BBC, it’s just trying to find a day you’re near enough to London to get there for filming. We’ll go over all of this more formally, of course.”  
“Of course,” Paul says, very serious, not a trace of irony, bless him.  
“Oh, and I just got off the phone, and I’ve sorted the song-writing credits so they’ll all be uniform from here on out, and I don’t think –”  
“Wait,” Paul says. “What do you mean, song-writing credits?”  
“Lennon-McCartney, instead of –” Brian falters. He looks over at John, too late.  
“Instead of McCartney-Lennon,” Paul says. He looks at John too. “That’s the order we’re going with, is it?”  
“Um,” says Brian. “Sorry, Paul, yes, but I thought you – I thought you knew.”  
“No,” Paul says. “No, I didn’t, no.”  
“Um,” Brian says. “Well, it’s – For consistency, really. Alphabetical order.”  
“Right,” Paul says. He holds John’s gaze a moment longer and then cuts away.

Ringo and George don’t, they keep staring. George looks like he’s contemplating murder, although it is possible that George is just looking at him, expressionless; he still hasn’t quite grown into his eyebrows yet.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Brian says. “I’ve handled this wrong – I assumed you knew –”  
“It’s alright, Eppy,” Paul says, in his most distant voice. “It’s all worked out, then.”  
“Well,” Brian says. “Yes.”  
“Alright then,” Paul says. He drums his fingers against the table and then pushes his chair back. “I’ve got to get home actually, I’ve got to put dinner on.”  
“D’you want me –” George begins, half-rising too.  
“Nah, you’re alright. I’ll see you on the eleventh, yeah?”  
“Bright and early,” Ringo says. Paul grins at him.  
“Early, for sure,” he agrees, picking his jacket up. “Good to see you again, John, Eppy.”

The moment he’s out of earshot, the rest of them turn on him as one.

“You said you were going to tell him!” Brian exclaims. “You said, and I agreed, that it was better coming from _you_!”  
“Well I didn’t think you were gonna blurt it out at the fucking pub!”  
“You’re a twat, John,” George says.  
_“_ He’s gonna kill you,” Ringo says, darkly.  
“Oh, dear, is he really upset?” Brian says, anxiously.  
“It’s not that bad,” John says, firmly. “It’s not. He’ll see it my way, I know him. Lennon-McCartney sounds better, two syllables then three and it’s in alphabetical order –”  
“Like fuck is that the reason,” George snaps.  
“Oh piss off, George, it’s my fucking band.”  
“John,” Brian says.

John subsides, seething. 

George picks up Paul’s pint and drains it.

“Maybe we should,” Ringo says, and jerks his head towards the door. “I mean, maybe one of us should go after him.”  
“Be my guest,” John says, properly irritated now. “It’s not my fault Eppy blurted it out like that.”  
“You’ve had two days to tell him,” Brian says, frowning at him.  
“I didn’t see him, did I? I was home with Cyn and – I was home.”  
“Could’ve picked up the phone,” Brian says. “For Paul.”  
“He was probably too scared Jim’d overhear,” George sneers.

John scoffs.

“Well, I’ll go over now and straighten it out,” Brian says, half-rising.

Paul had tucked his chair back underneath the table, the back of it lined up all neat with the table edge.

Stupid, fussy, prim Paul.

John hates all of them, it’s so bleeding unfair, he’s barely been back in the middle of them for half an hour.

“No, I’ll go,” he says, pushing his chair back. “S’my fault, innit.”  
“Oh sit down,” George says. “Let him lick his wounds. It’s gonna be fine.”

There’s a pause, a moment before John dares ask –

“Really?”  
“ _Yeah_ ,” George says, drawing it out like John’s slow. “Yeah, but not because of what you said, that’s a load of shit. Just because creating music is maybe the only thing in the world more important to Paul than his ego. So he’ll be mad as hell for a week and then he’ll get over it but John that’s – ”  
“You can’t do that again, mate,” Ringo says.  
“I won’t need to do it again,” John says. “It’s done, it’s over.”

* * *

Of course he’s not thick enough to think it’s over entirely, but they’re about to set off on the next leg of their tour so he does think that’ll be the end of the overt unpleasantness. Lucky escape, that, because Paulie still cares too much for what other people think of him to be publicly disagreeable.

On the drive to the first town on this leg of the tour, Paul is polite. He offers John a ciggie and the crusts he leaves off his sandwiches.

Backstage before their first show in two weeks, he’s funny and easily amused – he laughs at John’s worst jokes and makes faces behind Eppy’s back until George, smothering a laugh, makes a weird sound like a bleat and then they all make fun of him until it’s time to perform.

Then they pack into the van again and rattle down to London to record a show. They’re packed into a single dressing room and shepherded onto a sound-stage that feels smaller than Mimi’s kitchen and Paul manages to avoid him entirely.

Of course he’s wonderful when the cameras turn on. John can already see him, luminous even in black and white, and he knows that Paul is smiling at him, their shared triumph has them buoyed up and gracious, it’s new, it’s so exciting –

And then the lights switch off and Paul wanders off to bother Ringo.

He doesn’t even glance back.

In Sunderland, they have a hotel booked overnight: two rooms, two beds, and John is in with George.

The problem is, John always manages to forget just how good Paul is at lying - polite and smiling and so brilliant on-stage it’s hard to imagine him off it, and at the same time, he’s not himself, he’s not quite there.

After they perform, he disappears. The rest of them are hanging around chatting and they can hear the audience as they file out of the hall long after they’ve disappeared off-stage –

It’s a scene that feels very unnatural without Paul, so John leaves too.

He’s half-hoping to find him but Paul is very good at disappearing and John ends up wandering all the way back to the hotel alone. He stands outside Paul’s room for a while, too long a while, really, but he doesn’t know how to say everything he wants to say, so he goes down to the bar instead.

It’s very selfish of Paul to have chosen this particular moment to come over all self-righteous and fussy. This is their break, this is _it, happening_ , and Paul should be glued to John’s side, should be there for every last second of it.

He probably found a girl.

That makes his skin crawl so he cuts it off there.

Bad enough in Liverpool, worse still in Hamburg, Paul getting better looking by the day, taller and broader and more comfortable in his own skin.

Now, after Spain, the itch to touch Paul himself is overwhelming.

But it would be alright if they weren’t fighting, or aggressively _not-fighting_ , which has always been Paul’s preferred method. It’s just the combination, honest – the missing-Paul and wanting-Paul and how good Paul looks on-stage with the lights on his hair and his skin and the sheen of sweat he works up three or four songs in. ~~~~

“Alright?”

John barely has to glance up to know it’s George. The bloody kid moves so silently, it’s like having one of Mimi’s cats in the band – if the cat was a bad-tempered, chain-smoking teenager.

“I suppose you think I’m a bastard too, for all this,” he says, concentrating on his light and the ciggie between his teeth.

George takes the chair opposite and then takes John’s beer.

“I always think you’re a bastard, Johnny,” he says. “But I think in this instance you’ve been more of an arse. A twat. A two-faced manipulative cunt.”

John looks up, exhaling smoke. George smiles at him.

“I bet Macca’s just pissed he didn’t think of it first,” he says. “Did you actually have to go through with it, with Eppy? Or did you just – Y’know –”  
“What?” John says, flatly.  
“ _Flirt_ ,” George says, uncomfortably.  
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” John says, leering at him. “Dirty pervert.”

George holds his gaze.

“I bet you didn’t,” he says, decisively. John shrugs. “Did you? You didn’t.”  
“Does it matter?” John asks.

George wrinkles his nose. Then he says,

“Nah. S’pose not.”  
“Give me my pint back.”

George drains it, then slides the empty glass back across the table.

God, he’s annoying.

“D’you think he really is mad?” John asks.  
“Macca? Nah.”  
“He seems mad.”  
“He’ll get over it. He gets mad like this all the time.”  
“Does he?” John says, frowning.  
“Sure,” George says. “Stu, the rooms in Hamburg, the rooms in London. He got mad about playing bass.”

John considers this. It takes him a while; he smokes his ciggie down to the end and then drops it into his empty glass.

“Those are mostly things I did,” he says.  
“Oh, yeah. Guess so.”  
“That’s –” John says.

It makes him feel terrible, actually. Poor Paul, good-natured Paul, in his strange, golden-coloured world.

“Moody son of a bitch, isn’t he?” he says, instead. “Worse than Cyn.”  
“Hey,” George says. “They’ve got something in common, putting up with you.”  
“Fuck off,” John says. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”  
“Yes,” George says, completely unabashed. Fucking git. “Ritchie and Macca went to dinner. Did you know Jane Asher’s coming to his birthday?”  
“What?” John says. “Jane Asher? That snub-nosed bint?”  
“What are you talking about?” George says, and he actually laughs. “She’s a knock-out, you’re the one who said so.”  
“She’s coming up to Liverpool,” John says. “For our Paul’s birthday?”  
“Ay,” George says. He laughs again, shaking his head. “I reckon he really likes her, y’know. ‘Specially considering he’s gone to all the trouble of inviting her, what, a month in advance? Can you imagine it, our Paul dating a bird like Jane Asher?”  
“Actresses are slags,” John says, miserably.  
“Don’t think that’s gonna put Paul off,” George says, sagely.  
“Is she really –”  
“ _Yes_ ,” George says. “What’s wrong with it?”  
“Nothing,” John says. “Absolutely fuckin’ _nothing_. I want another beer.”

He pushes up from the table. George doesn’t follow him.

Flirting with the pretty girl behind the bar puts him back into a good mood, or at least it is a distraction from the thought of Jane, and how beautiful she is, and how long Paul was with Dot and how Jane is the first girl Paul has shown any real, _come-and-meet-my-dad_ , interest in since. 

He slams a second pint down onto the table in front of George as he takes his seat.

“Ta, Johnny,” George says.  
“Where’d they go for dinner, then? Ritch and Macca?”  
“Dunno,” George says. “Chippie, most like, fussy sods.”  
“You didn’t want to join them?”  
“Thought you might want some company, is all,” George says.

John smiles.

“Ta, Georgie.”  
“Was it,” George says, and then falls silent, staring balefully at John.  
“Was it what?”  
“Did he make a move on you? Eppy?”  
“Fuck’s sake,” John says, irritably. “Didn’t I tell you to drop it?”  
“It’s only ‘cos they’re sayin’ – I mean,” George says. He runs a finger around the top of his glass. “Since you and Brian left. Bob at the Cavern, and some of Rory’s boys are saying things.”  
“Saying what?” John says.  
“Just, _saying_. Like, you and Brian – Y’know.”  
“What?” John says, although he knows.

George squirms.

“That you’re – That you and Brian – That you’re _like_ Brian.”  
“Brian’s alright,” John says. “Decent bloke. I wouldn’t mind being compared to Brian.”  
“John,” George says.  
“Did Paulie tell you to do all this?”  
“What?”  
“Paul. Did he tell you?”  
“No!” George says. He looks offended now, although whether it’s for his sake or Paul’s, John can’t tell. “Macca won’t have anything to do with any of it.”  
“Yeah,” John scoffs. “Saint fucking Paul.”

George scowls at him.

John drums his fingers against the table, staring at the rippling surface of his beer where the foam’s collapsing into it.

“No one’s said anything to _me_ ,” he says.  
“Well, no,” George agrees. “But you’ve barely been home.”  
“Have they been saying it to you?”  
“No,” George says.  
“Tell me what the fucking problem is –”  
“Nothing!” George says. “Nothing! Forget it, it’s fine.”

John hunches over his pint. He can practically _hear_ George winding himself up to start again.

“It’s just, if it’s Eppy, and if it’s you –”  
“What, the rest of you might get branded? Is that it? Fuck off, Geo, you know I’m not queer, fucking hypocrite you are, playing nice with Brian, is this what you lot say about him behind his back? Warning me off him – Where d’you get off, huh? You spent two weeks cosying up with old Klaus, no one’s say anything about _that_ and Brian never made a move or nothing on me, Klaus followed you round like a puppy for a year, did you get off on the attention and that makes it okay? Brian’s a mate, he’s your mate, he’s Macca’s mate – It was him, wasn’t it? Prissy little coward –”  
“Leave Paul out of it,” George snaps. “Paul hasn’t said anything, which is bloody good of him, considering you sold him down the river for a handjob –”  
“Oh fuck _off,_ George,” John growls, and slams a hand against the table for emphasis.

George doesn’t even blink.

“I’m only telling you so you know,” he says. “Honest, John. I don’t care about Eppy, or whatever you did –”  
“George, I swear to God, I’ll punch you if you don’t shut up.”  
“Pfft,” George says, distinctly unimpressed. “I could take you, John Lennon, any day. Anyway, Macca would have your head if he found out you’d hit me.”  
“I don’t give a shit what Macca would do,” John mutters. “I’d do –” But the threat dies half-heartedly in his mouth. “Oh sod off, you rat-faced git.”  
“Rat-faced git,” George echoes, and snickers. “Give us a ciggie, Johnny.”

John passes his carton over. He watches George take one out and stick it between his teeth to light it.

He smokes the same way Paul does, sort of elegantly, with the last two fingers curled into his palm. John’s never noticed that before – he wonders who picked it up from whom.

“People are talking, then?” he says. “About it?”  
“Oh, ay,” George says. “But they’ll stop soon enough. Something else will happen, or – If someone says it in front of Ritchie or me, y’know, I’ll loosen a couple of teeth.”

John grins despite himself.

“You will, will you? Been practicing, have you?”  
“Yeah, yeah. Might take up boxing next,” George says. “If the music thing doesn’t work out.”

* * *

He lies awake that night, listening to George snore. He’s half-hard and too guilty to go into the en-suite and have a wank.

He thinks it’d show on his face, somehow; Brian would notice, or, worse, Paul.

He puts on his glasses and creeps out into the hall for a smoke. He’s got the dressing gown Cyn had folded into his suitcase belted loosely around him – a miracle, because he’s just set his ciggie to his lips when the door opposite opens and Paul steps out.

He’s bleary, sleep-mussed, and he squints at John for a moment.

“What’re you doing?”  
“Didn’t want to wake George,” John says. “He’s already taken half my pack.”  
“Couldn’t sleep?”  
“Guess not,” John says. “What’re you doing? Sneaking out?”  
“No,” Paul says, a little offended.

John grins.

“Course not.”  
“I’m hungry,” Paul says. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.  
“What d’you think can be done about that?” John says. “It’s three a.m.”  
“Is it?” Paul says. “Oh. Well.”  
“Thought you went out for dinner, anyway,” John says. “You and Rings.”  
“I did,” Paul says. “I wasn’t hungry. I s’pose I’ll –”

He’s reaching behind him for the door handle.

“Wait,” John says.

He hands off his ciggie and goes back into his room.

George’s suitcase is still open, unpacked, and there’s the half-pack of biscuits they opened on the drive up stowed away at the bottom.

When John goes back into the hall, triumphant, Paul has sat down against the wall, smoking John’s cigarette with his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

“Here,” John says. “Catch.”

Paul misses completely. John snickers. He watches Paul tear the pack open and cram an entire Digestive into his mouth. With his other hand, he holds John’s cigarette back up to him.

John takes a seat next to him.

“Keep it,” he says.

Paul says something incoherent, spraying crumbs.

“No clue, mate.”  
“D’you want one?”  
“Yeah. Cheers.”

They’re silent for a while. John is very conscious of Paul’s legs, stretched out, ankles crossed.

“S’not as nice without milk,” Paul says.

John rolls his eyes.

“Jesus, I don’t have an entire fridge back there.”

He glances over in time to see Paul smother a grin. That makes John feel slightly braver, so he knocks an arm against Paul’s.

“Hey,” he says. “I am – I mean, if you were upset – About the credits –”  
“Aw, piss off, John,” Paul says. “I’m not a girl.”  
“What, only girls get upset?” John says, irritated again. “Is that what you tell yourself? So you don’t feel bad for being a fucking robot –”  
“No,” Paul says. “That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I said.”  
“Fine,” John says. “Whatever.”

Paul snaps another biscuit in two.

“You’re fucking acting like a girl, though,” John says.

He doesn’t have to look at Paul to know what his face is doing, full McCartney scowl.

“What?”  
“If you’re pissed off just tell me why, don’t do this – ”

He waves a hand in Paul’s direction.

“What’s _this_?”  
“This, this freezing me out thing, this – You’re acting like everything’s normal but you’re all glassy or something. Dead behind the eyes.”  
“Dead behind the eyes,” Paul echoes. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”  
“Oh fuck off then,” John says. “I didn’t mean it.”  
“You said it,” Paul mutters. He brushes crumbs off his trousers. “I didn’t realise I was doing that.”  
“Yes you did,” John says. “Yes you did, don’t lie. You never do anything you don’t mean to do.”

He can feel Paul looking at him.

“That’s not true,” he says. “You –”  
“I what?” John says, when Paul’s silence stretches.  
“Why would it be a bad thing?” Paul says. “Why would it be bad if I knew what I wanted to do?”

John doesn’t say anything.

He wishes he’d brought more than the one cig outside.

“Just because I think things through,” Paul says. “I don’t go – Running ‘round causing trouble for myself accidentally.”  
“I did mean to change the order of the credits, if that’s what you’re getting at,” John says, coolly. “That wasn’t an accident.”  
“I said I don’t care about the credits,” Paul says. “Whatever, I don’t care, if it’s so important to you that your name’s first, I don’t care. It’s still my name on it. It’s still our song.”  
“Right,” John says, heatedly, but then he realises they’re in agreement. “Well then I don’t understand what’s gotten your knickers in a –”  
“I’m not a _girl_!” Paul snaps.  
“Jesus, I know that!” John says. “Seen the fucking evidence, haven’t I?”

Paul wrinkles his nose.

“They’re talking about me, at the Cavern,” John says. “Me and Brian. George said.”  
“Really?” Paul says. “What’re they saying?”  
“Take a wild guess,” John says. Paul makes a quiet sound, at the back of his throat. “So you haven’t heard anything?”  
“No,” Paul says, honestly. “Nothing. But I haven’t been back there since before we went away.”

He puts one of his fingers into his mouth and starts worrying at the nail.

“What should I do?” John asks. Paul shrugs.  
“I dunno,” he says.  
“It’s not true,” John says. “I’m not queer.”

Paul nods.

That doesn’t feel like enough from him.

“Well?” John says.  
“Well what? You tell me you’re not queer, I believe you.” He smirks. “I’ve seen the evidence.”  
“Yeah,” John says.  
“So did you just choose to go with Brian to sort out the songwriting credits?”  
“What?” John says. “No, bloody hell, you said you didn’t –”  
“I don’t,” Paul says. “I’m just trying to understand why you went.”  
“There’s nothing to understand. Barcelona with Eppy’s lot sounded better than Tenerife with you three.”

Paul shifts away.

“Right,” he says. “And better than Liverpool with your newborn son.”  
“Oh fuck off. You’ve got no idea –”  
“I’ve got some idea,” Paul says, coldly. “You want to put your lot in with Brian, I understand.”  
“ _No_ ,” John says. “No, you don’t.”  
“How d’you expect me to? You’ve been so secretive about it.”  
“I have not, you’ve barely given me the time of day since I got back.”

Paul rolls his eyes. They’re getting nowhere like this, they’ll be arguing in circles for weeks. John rearranges himself so he’s facing Paul with his legs crossed.

“D’you really want to understand?” he says.

Paul turns too, crossing his legs so they’re pressed together at the knee, the way they used to sit on Paul’s bed back home, as Paul went through chords and John tried to copy him.

“Yes,” he says. “I really want to understand.”

John breathes in.

“Brian’s a homosexual.”

Paul nods. 

“I was – I thought that was interesting.” He cringes. “I mean, I wanted to understand – Him.”  
“Are you,” Paul says. “You’re – Like him?”  
“No!” John says, too loud. They both wince – glance down the corridor but the doors stay shut. “No, of course not.”  
“But you wondered,” Paul says. “It’s alright, Johnny –”  
“Don’t patronise me,” John snaps.  
“I’m not –”  
“I only wondered,” John says. “Just what it’s like for him. Not – The other stuff, I’m not, I don’t care about – Don’t you ever wonder?”

Paul stares at him, lips parted.

“Did you have sex?” he asks. But he doesn’t give John a chance to answer, scrambling to stand up, “no, I don’t want to know –”

John stands up too.

“Why are you being –”  
“What?”  
“I didn’t do anything wrong, I was just – We’re mates, me and Brian.”  
“Yeah,” Paul scoffs. He folds his arms across his chest.

It feels awful, feeling so stupid.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but he had thought –

In Barcelona, in bed, in the sunlight, he had looked at a part of himself and found that Paul was important there, too. 

Well, he's done this to himself. Gotten his own hopes up somehow. Stupid, really. Stupid. John's fault entirely.

“What, you’re mad you’re not somebody’s favourite for once,” John says.

When he's angry, his voice doesn't shake.

“No,” Paul says. “What?”  
“You don’t understand how something could just be – He’s not like you, he’s not sex-obsessed.”  
“That’s rich coming from you.”  
“Yeah but you look at the world like everyone’s coming at it from your point of view,” John says. “Brian’s not just thinking about the next set of tits who’s gonna give it up –”  
“No, he’s definitely not thinking about the next set of tits.”  
“ _You_ said you wanted to understand.”  
“I don’t, I don’t understand.”  
“Yeah, ‘cos you’ve put so much effort into trying –”  
“Why does it bother you if you’re not queer?”  
“I’m _not_ –”  
“So it’s just Brian? You don’t like men but Brian does it for you?”

He looks horrible; John hates him.

“No,” John says. “No. I didn’t – You’re a cunt.”  
“You’re a cunt,” Paul says. “Fuck you, fuck you.”

He’s breathing hard, two red spots high on his cheeks.

John wants to kiss him.

He thinks, blindly, of Paris, of holding hands in the dark. They feel a long way from Paris.

Paul looks away first. He shoulders past John to open the door to his room and he disappears inside.

John goes back into his room too. Just inside, he’s seized by a bolt of anger and he slams the door so hard he feels the frame shake.

George shoots up in bed –

“What time is it?”  
“Fuck off,” John snarls.

* * *

The next few days feels like living with electricity inside him.

No – an electric shock, coiled round his spine, setting off when Paul’s stood nearby, ignoring him, when Paul’s on-stage, screaming Little Richard songs into the centre mic and beaming at John when George takes his solo, when Paul’s name comes up twice in conversation with Cyn when he calls home.

He’s even more fucked up than he’d thought, because he’s uncomfortably turned on by it. He gives in on night number two and has a wank, gasping into his forearm in the shower, thinking uncontrollably of Paul and his mouth and what he might look like in bed.

He feels slightly sick afterwards. It feels like guilt, shame at what Paul would think of John if he knew.

Paul, Paul, Paul.

He half-expects an apology the night after they fight, when they crash off-stage all on top of each other and Paul catches his arm.

John knows it’s Paul without turning because only Paul touches him like that. Paul is still breathless, still beaming, and then Brian appears behind Ringo to hurry them back to the dressing rooms. Paul’s face twists, he is hateful again and he drops John’s arm and turns away.

Paul is usually the one who apologises first. Or they sweep it under the rug, so to speak, and move on and no one has to apologise at all, which John prefers because he doesn’t know what to do with Paul when he’s that sincere.

On the way back to Liverpool, they stop for petrol. Neil says,  
“Stay here, I’ll only be a mo’.”

So of course they all get out of the van, glad for a chance to stretch their legs although it’s spitting rain and pitch black in the middle of nowhere.

Paul, head bowed, wanders off into the darkness.

“ _Oi_!” George shouts after him, right into John’s ear.  
“Ow.”  
“Where are you going?” George calls.

Paul keeps walking. George takes a few steps after him.

“ _Macca_! He said stay here!”  
“I need a fuckin’ piss, Hari.”  
“Oh,” George says.

He potters back towards the others.

When he’s close enough he gives John a smack, just quick enough that John can’t duck it.

“Ow,” John says, again. “The fuck was that for?”

He shoves George’s shoulder. Ringo steps between them.

“C’mon, let’s not all fight,” he says, plaintively.  
“Why d’you always assume it’s my fault?” John demands.  
“I’m not assuming anything,” George says. “You’re just closest.”

John glowers.

“I suppose you think it’s my fault too,” he says, to Ringo.  
“’Course not,” Ringo says. But then he tips his head against his shoulder and admits, “a little bit, yeah, Johnny.”

John growls. He pulls the collar of his jacket up and hunches into it.

In the front of the van, Eppy’s nodded off, his head against the window. The weird petrol-station light bleaches him. John thinks about opening his eyes underwater in the pool at the hotel in Barcelona and seeing Brian’s hand, ghostly, pushing water beside him.

“You better kiss and make up,” George says. “You better not ruin Roy Orbison for us.”  
“Yeah, yeah,” John says. “He can be a real prick, you know. Paul. He can be a real prick.”  
“I know,” George says. He’s struggling to light a cigarette against the damp air. “Absolute tosser.”  
“He was proper upset you went off with Eppy though,” Ringo says.

John's retort dies in his throat.

“He was?”  
“Ritch,” George says, quietly.  
“I’m just saying. Georgie, give us here.”

He rocks up on tiptoes to cup his hands around George’s cigarette and light it himself.

“Ta,” George says, on an exhale.  
“Painful to watch you,” Ringo says. “You’ve gotta admit, Johnny, you could’ve handled it better.”  
“Fuck off,” John says, miserably.  
“You didn’t have to do it the way you did, that’s all I’m saying. None of us have got a problem with what you did –”  
“Paul does,” George says.

Ringo steps backwards onto his foot. George yelps.

“ – It’s just that you could’ve been nicer about it," Ringo says.  
“Nicer about it,” John echoes. “What d’you mean, _nicer_? I don’t – It was just a bloody holiday. And it’s caused me more trouble than it was worth, to be honest.”

George’s cigarette stutters out.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”  
“It’s a lost cause, son.”  
“Got a spare?”  
“In me coat, give us a sec.”  
“Ta.”  
“ _Hello_?” John says, snapping his fingers in between them.

George gives him a filthy look, tucking Ringo’s ciggie between his front teeth.

“What is it, exactly, that I’ve done wrong here? You had a nice time in Tenerife? Free digs. You saw Astrid and Klaus. And he doesn’t need me to fuckin’ babysit him, does he?”  
“I don’t know,” Ringo says, peaceably. “I don’t know, John.”  
“Yeah, we don’t give a shit,” George says. “Just saying, Paulie does. Where is he anyway, he only went for a piss.”  
“Has he said something to you?” John says.

George squints at him.

“Ask him yourself,” he says.

John smacks the lighter out of his hand.

George shoves him.

Ringo shoulders himself between them again, one hand on John’s chest to calm him down.

“Stop it,” he says, firmly. “Look, it’s probably just a bit of everything, isn’t it? Everything changing so fast, and I reckon Paulie just felt like you’d left him. Like you’d chosen Brian over him.”  
“That’s ridiculous,” John says.  
“Yes,” George agrees. “But I mean, from his perspective – you did have the choice between us or and Eppy and you chose Eppy and –”  
“Well, it’s not even like you’ve known Brian very long,” Ringo says.  
“Known him longer than we’ve known you,” John sneers.  
“And it’s not like Eppy made the same offer to any of the rest of us,” George adds.  
“What, you’d’ve taken it up on it?”  
“No way.”  
“Well, then.”  
“He doesn’t know that, though does he,” Ringo says.

He glances over his shoulder but Brian’s still got his head mashed so uncomfortably against the window that he must be asleep.

“What’s there to know?” John says. “It’s _my_ band. He asked _me_ because this is _my_ fuckin’ band.”  
“C’mon, Johnny, let’s not have this out. We don’t care, do we Georgie?”  
“Nah,” George says.

John looks out into the darkness of the road.

Paul still hasn’t come back.

“Maybe I didn’t want to have to put up with _you_ for two weeks and it’s your fault, thought about that, Hari?”

George looks unimpressed and stoops to pick his lighter back up from the puddle at his feet.

“Christ,” John says. “Christ.”  
“This is broken,” George says. “You owe me another one.”  
“ _Oi!"_

Paul is marching towards them, out of the darkness.

“Put your fucking cigarette _out!"_ he shouts. "Are you _mad,_ you could blow yourselves up –”  
“What’s he on about,” Ringo says, grinning at him as he draws up.   
“You can’t just wave a lighter around in a petrol station, are you a _complete idiot_?”  
“It’s broken though,” George says. “John threw it in a puddle.”  
“Sounds like I saved your life, son,” John says. “Let’s call it even.”

Paul plucks the cigarette out from between George’s lips and puts it out, deliberately, against the door of the van. He presses the butt into George’s hand and then crawls into the van, muttering to himself. Ringo climbs back in after him.

“I told you to _stay there_!” Neil calls, striding across the tarmac towards them. John raises a hand.  
“We’re all here, calm down. Go on,” he says, to George, “ladies and children first.”

George makes a very rude hand gesture at him.

Brian wakes up as they turn into Liverpool.

He and Neil start chatting in the front, voices low. It's soothing, the hushed rise-and-fall of Brian’s voice like it had been in Spain with John falling asleep in the other room.

He could fall asleep now, if he didn’t have George snoring against him, all his sharp angles digging into the softest parts of John’s side.

That, and Paul’s still awake. The streetlights illuminate him in flashes, his pale face, his long lashes.

That’s soothing too; Paul, nearby, awake and watchful. 

* * *

They’re home for two days.

It’s disorientating, the particular sounds and smells, Cyn’s perfume and Julian’s spit-up instead of petrol fumes and the sweat of a crowded concert hall.

“Are you glad to be home?” Cynthia’s mum asks him, over dinner.  
“We’re glad to have him,” Cynthia says, before John can reply. Perhaps she is expecting him to say _no_. “But it’s only for – Two days? A day and a half, really, they didn’t get back until five this morning.”

In bed, her hair gets in his face, in his mouth and up his nose. They quietly rearrange themselves six or seven times. He can hear the _tick-tick-tick_ of the big clock in the hall; it’s never sounded so loud before.

By the time he gets to sleep, the sun is beginning to show through the curtains and he’s up barely three hours later when Julian starts crying.

The morning is sunny. They have tea in the garden.

When Julian sits down, his legs don’t bend. He’s got chubby little wrists and tiny fingers and his eyes take up half his face. His smile is wonderful. He laughs when John takes hold of his foot and rocks it gently side-to-side.

He thinks it should make him deliriously happy but when Julian goes in for his nap, John feels heartbroken.

One of Cyn’s paintings has been hung up above the fireplace. He doesn’t remember if there was something else there before, or how long it’s been there for. His guitar is still in its case, leaning against the wall.

“ _I need fresh air!”_ he calls, at the door, and shuts it on Cynthia’s reply.

He catches the bus that will take him to Allerton.

He doesn’t think about it; one moment he’s pacing down the road and the next he’s rattling around on the top deck, thinking about Paul, sixteen, changing into his drainies in the back seat.

Jim opens the door.

“Oh,” he says. He manages to sound disappointed. “John. Were we expecting you?”  
“No,” John says. “Is Paul in?”  
“In his room,” Jim tells him, stepping back to let John pass. “Are you staying for dinner?”  
“Dunno!” John calls, over his shoulder, already halfway up the stairs.

He knocks once on Paul’s door and lets himself in.

Paul, lying on his bed, looks up only briefly and then returns to his book.

“What if I’d been having a wank?” he says.  
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” John says, brightly. “Filling your head with words, are you? Careful, you’ll get clever.”  
“Nah, it’ll take ages for clever to get me,” Paul says. He puts the book on his chest. “What are you doing here?”  
“Wanted to see you,” John says.

Paul quirks an eyebrow.

“Not had enough of me?”  
“Well, Ritchie was busy.”  
“I see,” Paul says. He starts chewing on his forefinger.

John feels brave enough to ask,

“Are we fighting?”  
“Yeah, nine rounds but I’m winning,” Paul says, flatly.  
“Paul,” John says.  
“ _John_ ,” Paul mimics. “Stop looming over me, you’re making me nervous. Sit down.”

John does not really want to join Paul on Paul’s bed but there isn’t anywhere else. He takes the corner, gingerly.

“Did you bring your guitar?” Paul asks.

For some reason, that is a very irritating question, like there’s no other reason for John to seek Paul out, except for music and music and more music.

“Does it look like I brought my guitar?” John demands. “It doesn’t fold up small enough for my pocket, does it?”

Paul gives him a once-over, scornful. He picks his book back up and settles back down with it.

John has never seen anyone read passive-aggressively before.

It makes him chuckle and that makes Paul madder: his shoulders draw up tight, but it’s Paul and John’s so fond of him – his neat eyebrows knitting together, his beautiful mouth all screwed up.

“Stop _laughing_ at me,” Paul snaps.  
“M’not,” John says. “Macca, I just –”  
“Yes?”  
“Can we just – I just wanted to – Talk.”  
“Talk, then,” Paul says, turning a page.

John scowls at him.

“ _What_?” John says. “Are you waiting for an apology? Me to get down on my knee and tell you how sorry I am?”  
“No,” Paul says. “I know better than that, don’t I.”  
“Well, I am.”  
“What?”  
“Sorry. I am sorry. I was a right prick and, well, you were too but – I don’t know, maybe you had a right to be. So I’m sorry.”

Paul doesn’t say anything. His fingers flutter around the spine of his book and then he closes it and smooths one hand flat over the cover.

“Well?” John says.  
“What?”  
“Are you gonna say something?”  
“It doesn’t count as an apology if you only say it so I’ll forgive you.”  
“Oh drop the bloody act, doesn’t the _holier than thou_ shite get old?”  
“I do, though,” Paul says.  
“What?”  
“Forgive you. I do forgive you. Course I do. And you know I don’t think you’re – I’m sorry, too.”  
“Oh.”

Paul smiles at him, a little hesitant.

Then he drops his book onto the floor over the side of the bed and manoeuvres himself round so he’s sat with his back to the wall, his shoulder almost touching John’s.

John is very aware that they’re _not_ touching, more than he would be if they were.

“It’s weird being home, isn’t it?” John says. He wants Paul to agree with him.  
“Yeah,” Paul says. “Though – Y’know, at least it feels like home.”  
“Mine doesn’t,” John says. “Mine feels like someone else’s home.”  
“It’s not, though,” Paul says. “It’s yours.”  
“I know that, tosser. It’s just.”  
“Yeah?”  
“I feel like three different people.”  
“Three different people,” Paul says.  
“Someone who has a wife and a baby in Liverpool. Someone who has bruises from a tour bus – a tour van.”  
“Oh God, me too,” Paul says. “See?”

He leans forward to ruck his shirt up at the back. He’s got bruising blossoming in the dip of his waist and – horrifyingly – several raised, reddened lines scored higher up, across his spine, unmistakably scratch marks, marks from someone’s fingernails.

John fucking knew he’d had a girl, he _knew_ it, he _knew_ it.

He sees the moment Paul realises too, because he pulls his shirt back down hurriedly and sits back against the wall. The tips of his ears are flushed when he says,

“That’s two, who’s the third, then?”  
“Um,” John says. His mouth is dry. “No, I just – ”

He thinks, desperately, of Paul in bed.

“Paul,” he says, thickly. “In Spain – ”  
“No, John,” Paul says.  
“What?”  
“I don’t want to talk about Brian.”  
“Why not?”  
“Telling you why would be talking about it, wouldn’t it?” Paul says. He nudges John. “Just not right now.”

John doesn’t know how to say _please,_ or _I’ve wanted to talk about it with you since before it happened_ , or _it has to be you, because you help me understand these things about myself_ or _Paul, please, I had it all worked out in my head and now you need to know so I can understand it again_.

He thinks it would all come out sounding too much like _please, I love you_.

“But maybe – Soon?”  
“Maybe,” Paul says, in that closed-off way John suspects means _no_.  
“Couldn’t you tell me why you don’t want to – I mean, is it because of – I mean, do you think I –”  
“No,” Paul says. He looks up at John and away again. “It’s not because – Y’know, it’s not – It’s not.”  
“Right,” John says, unhappily.

He is surprised a moment later when Paul starts laughing.

“Oh God, Johnny, did you – Do you hear us? Georgie’s right, it must be a fucking nightmare trying to understand what we’re ever on about.”

There’s a knock on the door and then it opens a crack.

“Is John staying for dinner, Paul?” Jim calls, from behind the door.

Paul rolls his eyes.

“He’s right here, why don’t you ask him?”  
“Because he didn’t answer me the first time,” Jim says, snippily.

Sometimes he sounds so much like Paul that John feels oddly fond of him too.

“Nah, I better be off,” John says. “Back to Cyn.”  
“Hm,” Jim says. The door closes.  
“You sure?” Paul says. “It’s only egg and chips but there’ll be enough if you –”  
“No, I better go. Jules and all. As long as we’re alright,” John adds, turning back to the bed. Paul’s hand closes softly, gently, around John’s wrist.  
“Soft lad. Course, Johnny. I’ll see you tomorrow. Aw, no wait, I’ll walk you downstairs.”  
“’Fraid I’ll get lost?”  
“Afraid you’ll steal something, more like,” Paul quips.

He touches the small of John’s back, brief, warm pressure, John imagines he can feel each of Paul’s fingertips individually, through the layers of his shirt and his jumper.

“My love to Cyn and the baby,” Paul says. John turns on the doorstep.  
“He looks a bit like me, Cyn says.”  
“Poor bugger,” Paul says, and shuts the door.

John cackles.

He can hear Paul sniggering. Through the thin curtain over the glass panels, he can see that Paul's still stood there too.

But only for a moment and then he’s turned and gone.

* * *

In one of Cyn’s favourite films, Judy Garland clicks her heels and wishes for home.

John had watched it with Cyn curled up underneath his arm and Paul and Dot wide-eyed in the seats beside them.

He’d felt very conscious of his own head, of the noise that rattled around inside it. He didn’t think the other three had ever had to consider that; if you were wishing for home, what would you wish for?

Now he has several addresses: his mail ends up all over Liverpool, Brian’s offices above the record shop, Mimi’s house in Woolton, the house Cyn grew up in, where she’s raising their son. And he’s got a list of the hotels they’re staying in on this next tour, so people have a way to get in touch with him if they need him. And he’s got a place in London, four bedrooms, one for each Beatle.

When he thinks of _home_ in the wee hours, looking for a way to get to sleep, he still thinks about dozing off under the covers in Forthlin Road with Paul breathing beside him and Jim snoring down the hall if you strained hard enough to hear it.

They got the flat in London sorted sometime in March.

Paul was the last to arrive.

Well, you snooze, you lose; the three of them had set their suitcases down and George had even gone some ways towards unpacking – if throwing a couple of shirts and a jumper onto the floor in an attempt to unearth a record counted as unpacking.

So Paul turned up and put his suitcase down on the bed in the smallest bedroom and crossed to the window to look out of it.

John and Ringo had managed to get the rooms with a view of the garden, which was nice in early spring, daffodils beginning to show in the flower beds.

Paul’s room looked straight across the street to another building, identical to theirs, red brick and white windows, and the steely London sky.

“This is strange,” Paul had said.

John, leaning against the door, had padded further into the room. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder by the window.

“What’s strange?”  
“I dunno,” Paul said. “This. Being here.”  
“Better than a crummy hotel by the station, isn’t it?”  
“Yeah,” Paul agreed. But then, a moment later, “It’s posh, isn’t it?”  
“Is it?” John had said, in his most affected accent. “I hadn’t noticed. _Darling_ , you must leave the unpacking for later, Richard has set out scones for supper.”

Paul had laughed.

“Are there really scones?” he had said.  
“Nah,” John said. He turned his back on the window and looked at Paul’s little room, the cot and the odd, heavy drawers. “I’ll run out and get you some, if you like.”  
“No,” Paul had said, still laughing. “You’re alright, Johnny.”  
“No, let’s go out. C’mon, scones for our first night here all together.”

So they had gone out, picked up twelve scones from a bakery and two pots of jam from a grocers’. They weren’t recognised, or at least, no one stopped them.

They didn’t have a table so they ate the scones on the floor, on plates that Ringo had assured Paul Brian had brought over the other day, although John was quite sure he hadn’t and they’d been left in the cupboard by whoever leased the flat last.

Brian came by with a bottle of champagne to christen the new place. George was eating jam out of the jar and Ringo had stretched out in the last shafts of afternoon sun to smoke.

“This is swell, Eppy,” John had said, full of warmth.  
“Well, I don’t know how often you’ll be here, the next few months are booked solid, I just got off the phone,” Brian had said.

He’d passed the champagne out in delicate flutes that felt ridiculous in John’s hands – Paul, then George, then Ringo, then finally John.

“But we should get some furniture in here," he said. "I can have someone come round –”  
“Oh, no,” Paul had said. “No, we can do it ourselves, Brian.”

Brian demurred. Brian had an odd habit of deferring to Paul.

“Of course,” he said, politely. “Well. Cheers, boys.”  
“Cheers,” they chorused and raised their glasses to each other.

They had an indoor toilet in London. John had always had an indoor toilet, but George and Ringo were delighted.

“I always thought every house in London had an indoor loo,” Ringo had shouted through the door that evening. “And I was _right_.”  
“I don’t think they _all_ do,” Paul had said, but he’d stopped when George had kicked him.

When John trundled towards it later, to take a piss and brush his teeth for bed, he bumped into Paul coming out.

Paul had toothpaste on his upper lip and stubble dark on his jaw. Paul, in his pyjamas, was a strange sight.

John wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him so domesticated; in Hamburg they had tended to crash out in their leathers. If there was a moment to change out of them, they wore their undershirts and pants, or they didn’t wear anything. Even in the nights John had spent at Forthlin Road, he didn't think he’d once seen Paul put pyjamas on; Paul barely bothers to crawl out of his clothes when he’s drunk or tired.

So, Paul in his pyjamas with toothpaste drying on his lip, was a knife that went straight to John’s throat and severed him.

“Oops,” Paul had said, slipping past him. “Didn’t realise you were out here, sorry.”  
“Oh, no, I was only,” John had said.

Paul’s smile had made him think of his first night with Cynthia in a home they shared: the warm intimacy of her in her nightgown, sat in front of the vanity to brush and pin her hair up in curls for the next morning.

“Night, Johnny,” Paul had said. And then – bizarrely, unexpectedly – he had padded across the hall and back into his own room.

The door had shut.

John had stared after it. He half-expected Paul to come back out but of course he didn’t. There was no reason for them to share a bed in a place where they both had their own.

Suddenly, the little flat felt very large.

* * *

When they fly off-stage in Slough, the audience is still screaming for them.

Brian is waiting in the wings. He’s been nodding his head to the music – every time John glanced over as they tore through their set, Brian was nodding his head and smiling.

“That was great,” he tells them, clapping their shoulders as they pass him. “Really, really great.”  
“It felt fab,” Ringo says.  
“Did it sound good?” Paul asks, over John’s shoulder.  
“Better than good,” Brian says.  
“Twist and Shout especially,” Paul says. He touches John’s arm. “Right?”  
“Oh, yes, it might be the best I’ve ever heard it,” Brian says.  
“Like he can tell the difference,” John scoffs, smiling at him. He slings his arm around Paul’s shoulders, to touch him, too. “Where are we going, boys?”  
“To the top, Johnny, to the top!” they chorus, beaming at him, damp-haired, red-faced.  
“To the dressing room,” Brian corrects, nicely. “Come on.”  
“Oh, no, I want to watch Roy from here,” Paul says.

His hand skirts John’s hip as he rearranges his bass in his arms.

“Me too,” John says.  
“Shocker,” George says, flatly. “C’mon, Rings.”  
“I want a drink,” Ringo says. “Nice cold beer.”

He salutes them with his drumsticks as they head off down the corridor. Paul’s fingers curl, his knuckles shift the fabric of John’s jacket.

Watching the concert like this is like peering through a window from the past. Him and Paul, peering at the competition back home and in Hamburg, watching for the things they liked that they could steal for their own act, guitar licks and the way the band interacts with the audience.

Of course now the band is Roy Orbison and the stage is a proper stage with proper lights and a curtain. And they’re older and John feels it, and they never used to stand so close.

But it’s nice in the way it’s always been nice – Paul, and music, that’s all John’s wanted for a good time since he was eighteen.

When Roy and his band take their bows, Paul hooks his fingers beneath the sleeve of John’s jacket to tug him back towards the dressing room. He’s chattering away as they enter; he gets waylaid, distracted, carried off by George and Ringo so John brings up the rear with Brian as they head back towards the car that’ll take them to the hotel.

“I’m glad you’ve sorted it properly, John,” Brian says. _Joh-n._

John thinks he must mean the setlist, which they were bickering over the whole journey down but it was Beatle-bickering, where he and George and Paul had different opinions just to have them and they all knew what would happen in the end.

“You’re very impressive, on-stage together,” Brian adds, and John realises he means _you’ve sorted it with Paul_.  
“Didn’t you know that before?” he says.  
“No, of course I did,” Brian says. He sounds a little offended to be asked. “I mean, it’s been missing. The past few shows, it’s been what’s missing.”  
“Well, he was being a prick,” John says, mildly. “And now he’s not.”  
“Of course,” Brian says. “Whatever it is, I’m very glad.”  
“Don’t worry Eppy, we’ll be making you money again yet,” John says.

Brian stops. He puts a hand on John’s arm to stop him too.

“I hope you know that’s not what bothered me, John,” he says. _Joh-n_. “You’re dear friends to me, both of you, and I was – I have been mortified, to think that I might have played some part in what’s been happening –”  
“It really doesn’t bother him, Eppy,” John says. “If you’re talking about the songwriting credits. I told you –”  
“Not that,” Brian says.  
“ _Not_ that?” John says. “What’re you on about then, daft sod?”

Brian looks at him, very carefully.

“I thought – Perhaps this isn’t the best place for this,” he says.  
“What?”  
“What we discussed,” Brian says, quietly. “In Spain. I think – You see, if I misunderstood something, or if I – If I misinterpreted what you said – Or what you meant – Or what you wanted from me –”  
“Oh no,” John says, horrified. “No, no – Eppy, we’re – Mates, yeah? Just mates.”  
“Of course,” Brian says. “But if you were – I don’t know, John, if you were looking for something from me –”  
“What are you two doing?” Paul calls, from the end of the corridor.

There is something about Brian that sets Paul on edge, it always has. Lingering, misplaced resentment, John had thought, a little churlishly – Paul being sour at having to relinquish whatever power he thought he had to someone else.

Recently, only in the last few weeks, really, John has thought that it might be because Brian is a homosexual.

Before that, he’d brushed it aside – just Paul being Paul, a cold fish until he decided he liked someone and for some reason taking a long time to decide with Brian. Paul is odd around him in ways John has never seen him, awkward like he hasn’t been since before Hamburg, wary, either overly polite or unexpectedly rude.

John thinks it’s obvious enough that other people should have noticed but no one else has ever brought it up. He doesn’t want to be the first, in case this is the sort of thing he’s only noticed because of how much time he spends watching Paul and thinking about him.

He doesn’t think Paul and Brian have ever spent much time alone together, without someone else there. Actually, he’s not sure Paul and Brian have ever spent _any_ time alone together.

“Nothing,” Brian says. He hurries forward, long strides. John follows. “Just discussing the show.”  
“Oh, yes,” Paul says. He smiles at them. “Ritch wants to have a drink when we get back to the hotel. D’you think that’d be alright?”  
“A drink,” Brian says, suspiciously. “Does he mean _a_ drink? Just the lot of you, no one else?”  
“I think so,” Paul says. “I think it’s a little too early in the tour to cause a ruckus. It’d be awful if they kicked us off the list now.”  
“They’re not going to kick you off the list,” Brian says, wryly.  
“A _ruckus_ ,” John says, scornfully. “Paul, are you sure you’re not eighty three?”

They’ve caught up with the other two now. George grins at them.

“Paulie, he’s onto you.”  
“Damn it,” Paul says.  
“Are you two up for a drink, Johnny, Eppy?” Ringo asks, cheerfully. “I’ve got a bottle of whiskey in me room.”  
“Ay, go on then,” John says as Brian shakes his head.  
“No, you’re alright, but thank you for the offer, Ritchie.”  
“Are you sure?” George says. “It’s cheap stuff, Eppy, but it does the job.”  
“Yes, I’m quite sure.”

There are a few girls stood outside, braving the drizzle for autographs and a chat.

Then they climb back into the bus and John dozes off against Paul’s shoulder. In the hotel, they change out of their Beatle-suits and George fucks off into Paul and Ringo’s room while John sits on the end of the bed to ring home.

It’s late and Cyn wants to go to bed so they don’t talk long. When he steps out into the corridor to join the others, Brian is just stepping out of his room with an ice bucket.

“You decided to join us, then,” John says.  
“Not tonight,” Brian says. “Remember we’re leaving at nine tomorrow. Don't stay up too late, please.”  
"Yes, mum," John drawls. 

He knocks and then he turns back.

"Bri," he calls. “Y’know they invite you because they want you there. Not out of pity, or whatever you’ve got in your head.”

Brian smiles at him. 

“Night, John.”

* * *

George has his guitar out, picking quietly, carefully, through something Carl Perkins.

John reckons that’s what he’ll remember about these sorts of nights, it’s been this way for years – cluttered in one room, sprawled over each other in various combinations, Shotton and Stuart and Eppy and poor old Pete Best. There’s always music. If it’s not John, it’s Paul or George.

Paul is on his bed. Good thinking, that, but he’s always been a bright kid.

Ringo had passed out on the floor just after midnight; George put the blanket over him but they couldn’t prise the bottle from his arms without waking him, so the drinking seems to be done for the rest of them too.

John had thought Paul was asleep too until George started playing something proper and then Paul had piped up, sleepy little voice singing Twenty Flight Rock as slow as George was playing it.

He’s fallen silent again now George has lapsed into Perkins – when John puts an elbow up on the bed behind him to turn round, Paul is watching him.

He smiles at John, soft.

The alcohol is worse than the waves of devastating fondness – John’s had practice resisting those, but the whiskey makes him cave, scrambling up and over the bed to join Paul on the pillows.

“Alright?” he says. Paul’s head lolls onto John’s shoulder.   
“Alright,” he says.

He puts one of his knees against John’s. If they were other people, John would pull him closer still. 

“Is George asleep?” Paul asks, after a while.  
“Hmm,” John says.

He hadn’t noticed the music stop, but it has and George has slumped against the wall with his arms protectively around the body of his guitar.

“Someone should take him to bed, he’ll hurt his back like that.”  
“Who’s gonna do that?” John asks. He’s comfortable. “The nanny?”  
“Honey, it’s your turn,” Paul jokes.   
“Don’t,” John says. “God, I’ve got one of those at home.”

Paul sniffs. 

“Johnny,” he says. “Is it awful I keep forgetting that?”  
“No,” John says. “It’s only awful when I do.”

Paul doesn’t say anything. He hitches his leg up further, his thigh lined up over John’s from knee to hip.

Dimly, John thinks it’s horribly erotic but he’s too tired, he’s had too much to drink, to be anything other than hypothetically aroused.

”Can I tell you something?” John says.  
“Maybe,” Paul says. He twists round. “Is it a secret?”

John considers this.

“I don’t think it’s a secret,” he says.  
“Do you promise not to tell,” Paul says, makes himself giggle.  
“Those aren’t the right words,” John tells him.   
“Oh how the turns have – Oh, how the tables have turned.”  
“You’re sloshed,” John says, amused. 

Paul is definitely, without a doubt, plastered – He splays one hand out against John’s chest, curls his fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

“Tell me your secret, Johnny,” he says.   
“You, Georgie, Ritchie,” John says. “I don’t think I like anyone else.”  
“Who else is there?” Paul asks. “Can I tell you something?”  
“No,” John says.

Paul laughs. John loves his laugh, loves it, loves how Paul keeps smiling though it.

“Go on then.”  
“I thought it was gonna be something else,” Paul says. He drags his hand across John’s chest and starts fiddling with one of the buttons on his shirt.

John watches him, something hot lodged in his throat.

“What was gonna be something else?”  
“Your secret,” Paul says, in a stage-whisper.  
“My secret?”

The button pops open. Paul starts on the one above it.

“I thought you were gonna tell me about Brian.”  
“Tell you,” John echoes. “You said you didn’t want to hear – Although I haven’t told you anything so I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say.”  
“No, I know what you’re going to say,” Paul says. His eyes are fixed on John’s chest, on his fingers fumbling bizarrely with John’s clothes. “And I don’t want to know.”  
“But there’s no way you know because I haven’t said it,” John says.

The second button pops free too. Paul pushes three fingers inside the gap. He keeps them there, scratching gently over the fabric of John’s undershirt. Then he looks up and meets John’s eyes.

If a girl was giving him that look, with her hand inside John’s shirt, he’d have already pushed her down onto the mattress.

A girl – A man, Brian or someone like him, someone who must _want_ something back –

But it’s Paul, and John doesn’t understand what he’s looking for, what John is supposed to do. He wouldn’t even have to lean forward, just tilt his head slightly and they’d be kissing.

He can feel the moment stretching. He thinks he should do something, does Paul ever do things he doesn’t really intend to do?

No, but he’s drunk, drunker than John, probably. John can’t be the one who breaks this. 

And then Paul has swung himself away, his legs off the side of the bed. He hunches over them.

For a moment, John thinks he might be sick. He reaches out for him and loses courage with his fingers inches from Paul’s shoulder.

“M’sorry,” Paul says. “Sorry.”

He rises, unsteadily.

“Where are you going?”  
“To bed.”  
“This is your room,” John points out.  
“Yeah, but they’re – They’re already asleep in here, so I’ll just take your room.”  
“They’re on the floor,” John says.  
“They’ll wake up and they can take the other bed.”  
“The other –” John echoes. “Paulie, that’s stupid –”

Paul is already stepping over Ringo towards the door.

“G’night, Johnny,” he says.  
“Macca,” John says, but the door has already closed.


End file.
